BARRY SNOOKER player Alfie Davies has made a successful start to the Welsh domestic season by coming from 2-0 behind to beat Matthew Roberts 3-2 in the final of ranking event 1 at Snooker World, Ammanford on Sunday, 15th September.
Davies, 23, was taken to a decider in all three of his matches during the tournament. In the opening round, he defeated Bradley Tyson 3-2 before beating 2016 European under 18 champion Tyler Rees by the same scoreline in the semi-finals.
Roberts, who made the long journey from Wrexham to take part in the tournament, surged into a 2-0 lead during the opening stages of the final, but Davies turned the match around by winning all three remaining frames.
Afterwards, Davies explained the change of approach midway through the final that helped him complete the comeback: “In the second frame, I tried planting a few snookers, I lost the frame but I felt I’d got my arm going. I went to the toilet after that frame and decided I’d just go out and attack to see how Matthew responded. I made a break of 84 and everything tilted in my favour from there,” he said.
Davies ended last season with a narrow 8-6 defeat to North Walian Alex Taubman in the final of the prestigious Welsh Amateur Championship, having also finished runner-up the previous year. He admitted that victory in the opening ranking event of the new season was a major psychological boost: “It’s nice to get a tournament win, to be honest. I’ve lost in the final of the Welsh Amateur Championship for the last two years in a row, and I think this is my first tournament win in a regular season event since 2022.
“I’m practising for around two-and-a-half hours per day at the moment, and I try and play competitive matches twice per week to get me ready for the new season,” he said.
Davies’s main ambition for the season is to obtain professional status. There is only room on the professional tour for around 128 players at any one time, and he has come tantalisingly close to earning a coveted tour card in recent years.
If Davies makes it onto the tour, he will follow in the footsteps of his father, Anthony, who was a pro between 1991 and 2005, where he reached a high of 26 in the world rankings.
This weekend, Davies will head to Sofia, Bulgaria, where he will join Europe’s best players without professional status for the second event in the Q Tour Europe series.
The series consists of seven events held throughout the UK and Europe, and the player who finishes top of the rankings will earn a two-year professional tour card, while the next 16 ranked players (including each event winner) will be guaranteed a place at the end-of-season Q Tour Global Playoff, where a further three tour cards will be up for grabs.
Last month, Davies’s Q Tour Europe campaign got off to a disappointing start at the opening event in Leeds, where he suffered a 4-1 first round defeat to Nicolas Mortreux, who has won the French Amateur Championship for the last two years in a row.
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